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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Marion find out about Beulah Gierdien at the library?

2. How did Marion know Alberta?

3. How do Hortensia and Marion get to Agnes’s home in Cape Town?

4. What does Aggie say to Marion as she leaves the library?

5. How does Marion feel about Alberta’s story in retrospect?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Chapter Sixteen show Marion develop?

2. Why is Marion surprised by Hortensia’s interaction with Innes?

3. How does Peter feel about Hortensia’s career?

4. How does Marion feel about the torture schematics she finds at the library?

5. What is the arrangement when Marion moves into Hortensia’s house?

6. What causes Hortensia to “begin to hate”?

7. How does Agnes ultimately feel about Marion?

8. How do Hortensia and Marion’s perspectives on housekeepers differ?

9. Why did Hortensia never confront Peter about the affair?

10. Why did Hortensia and Peter’s relationship receive criticism?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does South Africa’s history of Apartheid impact the plot of The Woman Next Door? In what ways does this history impact the setting? In what ways does it impact the relationships between the characters?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze the interaction between Hortensia and Esme. How does Hortensia initially feel about meeting the woman, and what causes her to eventually do so? How does she come away from the meeting different?

Essay Topic 3

How do the flashback scenes serve the overall narrative of the novel? What information do we learn from these scenes?

(see the answer keys)

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